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Preparing presentations

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Most projects will at some point require a presentation to be given to key stakeholders and other interested parties. These presentations are often a crucial part of the project, and their outcome can significantly impact the success of the work. The team stands a much greater chance of making a successful presentation - generating enthusiasm and commitment from stakeholders, if they present their analysis clearly and logically, with a compelling narrative. Storyboarding is a tool to help achieve this.

What is Storyboarding?

The storyboard is a tool originally developed in the film industry, and consists of a series of visual images that simply and briefly illustrate the film's key scenes and events. As with many 'buzzword' terms, storyboarding has been used and misused in a variety of contexts other than filmmaking. Applied to projects and presentations, the most important parallels are as a means to sketch the flow of the narrative at the very early stages, seeking the most coherent way to link its component parts. By having a clear idea of the best way to construct the narrative, significant savings are made in work at the later stages, avoiding the need to change the structure once the slides have a lot of detail on them and are integrated more tightly. Secondly, having a clear narrative through the presentation will help avoid the tendency to present 'facts, facts, facts', which is likely to make the presentation tedious for the audience.

Initial Questions to Ask

Before preparing a storyboard, there are a number of basic questions that need to be answered:

• What do you want to achieve from the presentation? Are you planning to update the audience on general progress, or do you want to engage them in a discussion of particular issues? Are there specific decisions that you need them to make?
• Who is your audience? The way you prepare your narrative will differ depending on whether you are presenting to an expert group, or a group who has never engaged with the issues before. Do you know if they want to hear a detailed analysis, or high-level conclusions?
• How long do you have to make the presentation? It usually takes longer than you expect to present, particularly if the audience ask questions (which they should, if they are engaged with your work). Establish how long you will have to present (leaving time for questions) and from there, work out how many slides you can use. As a rule of thumb, it takes three minutes to present a basic slide with three or four points to explain. More complex slides will of course take longer to explain. The longer the presentation, the greater the need for clarity.
• In what format are you going to present? With a small group it is easy to print out paper copies of your slides, with multiple slides on each page. This has the advantage of avoiding the need to organise a projector and laptop (as well as inopportune technical glitches!) and allows your audience to make notes more effectively. However, with printouts people can try and race ahead in the presentation, not being able to focus on your commentary at the same time. How much do you trust your audience, do they want to listen? With larger groups, providing individual printouts may not be possible, but nevertheless a projector has the advantage of being a single focal point for the room where you can more precisely control the flow of the narrative. Furthermore, it can act as a covert aide memoire in longer presentations for the narrator.

Preparing the Story

Once you have a good idea of the right length, tone and format for your presentation, you can start to design your 'story'. As with the standard dictum that governs speeches, tell them what you are going to say, say it, and then tell them what you have said. Secondly, don't simply read out the contents of your slides! Use them as the bulwark with which to fortify your commentary. The surest recipe for confusion is to be talking about a different point to the one on the projector or the hand-out. Where one slide covers four points, consider revealing them one by one as you talk though them. Remember that you want your audience to:

• Absorb what you are saying quickly and easily - so have the body of the slide fit tightly with the title or 'strap-line'. Try to keep your slides uncluttered, with no more than four points on each with a common convention for font sizes and styles and element positions.
• Have confidence in the validity of the material - cite your analytical sources
• Be clear on the recommended path of action - provide a conclusion that encapsulates your central message.

You can be more confident of meeting your audience's needs if you can answer the following questions:

• What is the subject I am considering?
• What is the central question in my audience's mind about that subject?
• What is my answer to that central question?

Frequently, the agenda of the presenter and his audience may be slightly different. For example, a presentation to the Treasury that tries to convey the innovative nature of your policy recommendation might be lost amidst their concerns regarding its cost-effectiveness. Communications with stakeholders before the presentation often give an indication of their concerns If they are not explicit, and if you don't know them before the presentation, try and pick them up as you go through rather than ignoring them.

Knowing the central question in your audience's mind is central to generating an engaging narrative. A common approach is to use a 'pyramid' structure for your presentation. The pyramid should start with a single overall summary slide, on which you sum up the key elements of your story, and the answer to the central question that you believe will be in your audience's mind. Behind the summary slide are more detailed sections, each of which also starts with a slide summarising the section. Inside each section is the detailed analysis and arguments to support the main conclusions.

Using this pyramid approach creates a strong presentation with clear conclusions extracted out of the body of detail, and grounded in a sound logical basis. Where presentation time is short, and you are not sure which of the slides the audience will want clarification on, a useful trick is to include 'hidden' slides in the presentation which can be shown later in support of a particular slide if it is questioned (in PowerPoint, go to Slide-show ® Hide Slide).

Before writing any slides, sketch out the flow of the presentation with a separate post-it note for each slide. Write down the exact title you are going to use on each slide. The titles alone should tell the complete story that the audience is going to hear. Secondly, sketch out the content you are going to put on each slide - word arguments, analytical tables, graphs or pictures. That way you can check that you have all the data that you need before starting to prepare the slides, and more easily see the balance of the presentation between text, tables, graphs and graphics. Once you have prepared your presentation, share it with colleagues to check that they agree with your logic, and that your story is clear.

Every presentation should include a number of standard elements:

• Agenda - so you can explain to your audience what your are going to be presenting, and the timing of your presentation
• Summary slides - both an overall one page summary of your presentation, and individual summaries at the start of each new section
• Conclusions/recommendations - sum up your findings on a single page
• Next steps - tell your audience what you plan to do next, and how you will keep them involved in the process

In the process of constructing the narrative, several teams have found it advantageous to involve individuals with executive input into the presentation, such as external advisors, as it lessens the risk of trying to rewrite the structure of the presentation at the 11^th hour. Quite apart from their opinion of the content, the very process of constructing the story is very likely to increase their sense of 'ownership' with the project.

Strengths

• It allows you to see the logic and flow of the presentation at a very early stage, making experimentation and revision of the narrative far less costly (in time) compared with jumping straight in with slide design and revisions are required later.
• It also allows you to ensure that you have all the supporting information that you need before starting to write your slides.
• It allows you to see early on the viability of different elements of the presentation together, rather than as discrete units that are then stuck together in an ungainly fashion at a late stage of the project cycle.

Weaknesses

• It is an extra layer of planning which will be time-consuming. For very short presentations it might not be necessary to include all the elements listed above (e.g. agenda, summary slides etc.) However, even with very short presentations, it is valuable to think through your story, as you have very little time to engage your audience.

Pitfalls

• Including graphs, tables or analysis in your presentation just because you've done the work. If it doesn't directly support your conclusions, don't include it!
• Failing to identify the key issues that your audience wants to discuss, or failing to put together a compelling story that is fully supported by the data.
• Failing to match the claims of your commentary with the evidence in your slides.
• The clarity of the presentation achieved via storyboarding is designed to increase its impact, not substitute for the strength of the evidence and analysis.

Resources

Consulting firms tend to prepare a lot of presentations, so any colleagues who have worked for a consultancy will be able to help you prepare a compelling story for your presentation.

"The Pyramid Principle" by Barbara Minto describes in more detail how to structure a presentation using pyramid logic.

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